Engineers at the University of South Carolina found a cheap and relatively simple method to imbue everyday t-shirts with charge. You probably won't be able to replicate it, but if you want to try, here's how they did it. They bought a t-shirt and soaked it in a fluoride solution, then baked at a high temperature in an oxygen-free oven.

Once the t-shirt came out of the oven, the fibers were converted from cellulose to activated carbon able to store electrical charge. A quick dousing of a nanometer layer of manganese oxide and you have yourself a totally flexible, super–thin high-performing super capacitor. Now imagine that layered up in your phone the same size as your current battery – goodbye nightly charging.

Presumably the whole thing – when it comes to market – will charge your devices wirelessly, somehow. So now you just need to think up a funky and suitably ironic design – we’re thinking flux capacitor.